The moving coming-of-age story about transmission and preservation of a culture and territory under threat of disappearance, is a six-part Tasmanian production. It was filmed entirely on location in lutruwita, on tayaritja – Great Dog Island (Big Dog Island) in Bass Strait – within the Furneaux Group, located between Flinders and Cape Barren islands. The series will debut on SBS and NITV on June 19.

Co-writer, co-producer and pakana man Adam Thompson says Moonbird was more than a show about muttonbirding, but about deep personal connection to family and tradition, as well as the slow but sure erasure of tradition through outside factors like climate change.

“It’s a drama, and the story is about an estranged Aboriginal father and son who go muttonbirding together for the first time on a remote island in Bass Strait,” Thompson says.

“When things don’t go to plan, the father, who’s been sober for 12 months, gets back on the drink and the boy is kind of left alone, and has a journey of discovery around the island, where he uncovers some family history that helps him to understand why his dad is the way he is.

“The story is about culture and tradition, but really, at its heart, it’s about a boy and his dad trying to reconnect with each other.”

There is also a generational divide – the character of the father is more politically incorrect while the son is more aware – and it’s about the two needing to understand each other.

Thompson says it wasn’t hard to get into the voice of the father and the son for both himself and his co-writer, Trawlwoolway man and acclaimed playwright Nathan Maynard.

Both have muttonbird sheds and enjoy taking their children muttonbirding.

“We wrote it together, and our process was really just kind of developing the story together, and the story evolved over time,” he says.

“Nathan and I are both muttonbirders.

“We’re both palawa men, and muttonbirding is a very important cultural activity to our people and to us personally.”

The story was “in some ways, easy to tell,” Thompson explains, knowing the landscape, culture and traditions.

“But within that story there are some difficult things to deal with,” he says.

“This is a legacy of the exploitation of Aboriginal muttonbirds and Aboriginal people on those islands. There’s a history of the degradation of the muttonbirds’ habitat and Aboriginal land that’s happened in the past.

“We also live in a changing world where there’s an impact on the muttonbirds themselves. We found that story close to home.”

Thompson says while it was a dark story it was also a beautiful story about family.

The islands where muttonbirding takes place were only fairly recently given back to allow the practice in 1995, when the Tasmanian government returned ancestral lands.

“Muttonbirding is the annual harvest of mutton birds, or yula, which is the palawa word for a muttonbird,” Thompson says.

“A muttonbird is a migratory sea bird that burrows in the ground, and they’re predominantly found in the islands in Bass Strait.

“They are a traditional food of Tasmanian Aboriginal people and there’s a commercial element to muttonbirding now, but generally it’s a cultural practice.

“We go there every year during the muttonbird season, which is from the end of March right through April to the beginning of May. It’s the time when the muttonbird chicks that have been hatched from eggs within these burrows, and they’ve been raised by their parents and it’s the point of which they’re big enough to be able to harvest, and we only harvest the chicks just at the point when they’re kind of almost ready to fly and leave and become adults as well.”

The feathers were once collected to stuff things like mattresses; now people mostly buy the feathers for art.

Mutton oil, a valuable by-product of muttonbirding, was also prized for its medicinal properties.

But more than just harvesting for food and products, the practice is a connection to traditional practices.

“Our people have had this kind of forced assimilation on us, and so it’s important for our kids and our people to live with the culture and to understand that culture connects us to generations and generations of people, right back to our tribal people,” Thompson says.

“It’s so much more than just going muttonbirding and harvesting birds.

There’s all of the history of our people doing that, and all of the names written on the walls in the muttonbird sheds”.

The island itself, called Seal Pup Island in the show, was a huge part of the feel of the production.

“The reason why we filmed it there is really ... it’s for the authenticity,” Thompson says.

“The landscape on that island and those muttonbird islands is so unique.

“The landscape of that place is a character really in the story and that landscape and that setting has never, ever been seen before in dramatic television, or any dramatic screen at all.”

It was a rough process; the island is only accessible by boat, there is only old and rough infrastructure and the 35 cast and crew needed to be brought in and out, as did their food and everything else that was required.

“We had to take the good with the bad – fantastic location, but a difficult production process,” he says.

Of his role, Thompson says he was able to be on set for the filming of the show, but was also put to use for the entire process, no matter the task.

“Only Nathan and myself were really familiar with the island,” he says.

“As well as us being there in key roles, we were also there helping [the rest of the cast and crew] navigate being on a strange island in that type of environment.

“I was the one driving the tractor around, and emptying the portaloos and all this other stuff, as well. We really had to make do with what we had there.”

Thompson is an acclaimed writer of contemporary short fiction. His work has appeared in the Australian Dictionary of Biography, Kill Your Darlings and the Griffith Review, as well as appearing in several anthologies.

He has also received several writing awards through the Tamar Valley Writers Festival and the Tasmanian Writers and Readers Festival and in 2019, he was named Tasmanian Aboriginal Artist of the Year. More recently Thompson’s award-winning book, Born Into This, was used as the inspiration for an episode of animated series Little J and Big Cuz, but his role with Moonbird marks the first time his words have come to life in a live action production.

“It was interesting to see how it transfers from the page to the screen,” he says.

“I’m really inspired to keep working in the screen industry.”

Tasmania’s Catherine Pettman worked closely with the co-writers developing the story.

Moonbird was a co-production between Tasmania’s first Aboriginal screen production company, Kutikina Productions, owned by Thompson and Maynard, and Sheoak Films, which was founded by Pettman.

Principal production funding came from Screen Australia in association with SBS, with support from Screen Tasmania. The production was also developed with the assistance of Screen Australia, SBS and Screen Tasmania.•

Moonbird debuts on SBS On Demand and NITV on June 19.